One of the manifestations of the Stalinist repressive policy in the countryside is the decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, issued on August 7, 1932, "On the Protection of Property of State Enterprises, Collective Farms and Cooperation and the Strengthening of Public (Socialist) Property", often referred to in the publicist literature as the "Law of Five Spikelets".
Was there any rational basis for the adoption of this decision?
The then Soviet legislation was distinguished by extreme leniency in relation to criminals. Even for premeditated murder with aggravated circumstances, no more than 10 years of imprisonment was supposed [11, p. 70]. The punishments for theft were almost symbolic. Secret theft of someone else's property, committed without the use of any technical means, for the first time and without collusion with other persons, entailed imprisonment or forced labor for up to three months.
If committed repeatedly, or in relation to property that is deliberately necessary for the existence of the victim - imprisonment for up to six months.
Committed with the use of technical means or repeatedly, or by prior conspiracy with other persons, as well as, albeit without specified conditions, committed at train stations, marinas, steamers, in wagons and hotels - imprisonment for up to one year.
Committed by a private person from state and public warehouses, wagons, ships and other storage facilities or in the places of public use indicated in the previous paragraph, by the use of technical means or in collusion with other persons or repeatedly, as well as committed even without the specified conditions by a person who had special access to these warehouses or to those who guarded them, or during a fire, flood or other public disaster - imprisonment for up to two years or forced labor for up to one year.
Committed from state and public warehouses and storages by a person who had special access to them or who guarded them, by using technical means either repeatedly, or in collusion with other persons, as well as any theft from the same warehouses and storages, with a particularly large size of the stolen, - imprisonment for up to five years. [11, p. 76-77].
Of course, such lenient sentences did not frighten lovers of other people's good: “The thieves themselves defiantly declared:“You will meet with me again in a year. You cannot give me more.” One judge said that an inveterate thief who was arrested for committing one theft confessed to committing four more thefts in the past months. When asked about the reason for his confession, he stated that in any case he would only be awarded one year! " [10, p. 396].
However, for the time being, the superhumanity of Soviet laws was compensated for by informal means. The peasants who made up the majority of the population from time immemorial have been accustomed to defending their property without resorting to the help of official justice.
However, as a result of collectivization, a vast array of public property was formed. General means nobody's. Newly minted collective farmers who zealously defended their property, as a rule, were not eager to take care of collective farm goods as zealously. Moreover, many of them themselves strove to steal what is bad.
In a letter to L. M. To Kaganovich on July 20, 1932, Stalin argued the need for a new law to be adopted:
“Recently, theft of goods on public railway transport has become more frequent (they are plundered for tens of 101 million rubles); secondly, the theft of cooperative and collective farm property. Thefts are organized mainly by the kulaks (dispossessed) and other anti-Soviet elements who seek to undermine our new system. According to the law, these gentlemen are considered ordinary thieves, receive two or three years in prison (formal), but in fact, after 6-8 months they are amnestied. Such a regime for these gentlemen, which cannot be called socialist, only encourages them, in essence, real counter-revolutionary "work." It is unthinkable to endure such a situation”[6, p. 115].
Of course, theft should be punished. However, the punishments envisaged by the Decree of August 7, 1932 look excessively harsh (Stalin himself called them "draconian" in the letter cited above). Based on the letter of the Resolution, the main punishment for the theft of goods in transport, as well as for theft (theft) of collective farm and cooperative property should have been shooting with confiscation of property, and only in the presence of mitigating circumstances - 10 years of imprisonment [7].
What was the case in practice? The results of the application of the law from the moment of its publication to January 1, 1933 in the RSFSR are as follows: 3.5% of the convicts were sentenced to death, 60.3% were sentenced to 10 years in prison, and 36.2% below [1, with. 2]. Of the latter, 80% of those convicted received sentences not related to imprisonment [10, p. 111].
It should be noted that by no means all death sentences were carried out: by January 1, 1933, the general courts in the RSFSR had delivered 2,686 death sentences in accordance with the Decree of August 7. In addition, the RSFSR accounts for a fair share of sentences passed by linear transport courts (812 death sentences in the USSR as a whole) and military tribunals (208 sentences in the USSR) [10, p. 139]. However, the Supreme Court of the RSFSR reviewed almost half of these sentences. The CEC Presidium made even more excuses. According to the RSFSR People's Commissar of Justice N. V. Krylenko, on January 1, 1933, the total number of people executed according to the law of August 7 on the territory of the RSFSR did not exceed a thousand people [10, p. 112].
On November 17, 1932, the Collegium of the RSFSR People's Commissariat of Justice decided to restrict the application of Article 51 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, which allowed sentencing below the lower limit prescribed by law for the commission of this crime. From now on, the right to apply Article 51 was granted only to the regional and regional courts. People's courts in those cases when they considered it necessary to mitigate the sentence below the limit, had to raise this issue before the regional or regional court [1, p. 2].
At the same time, the Collegium pointed out that in each individual case of involving a worker for petty embezzlement, it is necessary to approach differentially and under especially exceptional circumstances (need, multi-family, insignificant amount of stolen, absence of mass scale of such embezzlement) cases could be terminated in the order of a note to Art. 6 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR [1, p. 2].
The restriction on the application of Article 51, and especially the joint plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the CPSU (b), which took place on January 7-12, 1933, forced the judges to show great severity. As a result, in the RSFSR, out of those convicted under the Law of August 7 from January 1 to May 1, 1933, 5.4% received the death penalty, 84.5% received 10 years of imprisonment, and 10.1% received lighter sentences [1, p. 2]. However, the proportion of death sentences was still very low.
Who fell under the punishing hand of the Law of August 7?
“Three peasants, of whom two, according to the indictment, are kulaks, and according to the certificates presented to them - not kulaks, but middle peasants - took a collective farm boat for a whole day and went fishing. And for this unauthorized use of a collective farm boat, the decree on August 7 was applied, and was sentenced to a very serious punishment. Or another case, when a whole family was convicted by decree on August 7 for eating fish from a river that flowed past the collective farm. Or the third case, when one guy was convicted by decree on August 7 for the fact that at night, as the verdict says, he dabbled in the barn with the girls and thus disturbed the collective farm pig. The wise judge knew, of course, that the collective farm pig is part of the collective farm property, and the collective farm property is sacred and inviolable. Therefore, this sage reasoned, it is necessary to apply the decree of August 7 and condemn “for disturbance” to 10 years in prison.
We have sentences with very serious measures of social protection for the fact that someone hit a collective farm piglet with a stone (again, a piglet), caused him some bodily harm: the decree on August 7 was applied as an encroachment on public property”[3, p. 102-103].
These facts are cited in his brochure by the famous Stalinist prosecutor A. Ya. Vyshinsky. However, he immediately makes an important addition:
“True, these sentences are steadily canceled, the judges themselves are steadily removed from their posts, but nevertheless this characterizes the level of political understanding, the political outlook of those people who can pass such sentences” [3, p. 103].
And here are a number of similar examples.
“The clerk of the collective farm Alekseenko for his negligent attitude to the village. -NS. inventory, which resulted in the partial abandonment of inventory after renovation in the open air, was sentenced by popular court under the law of 7 / VIII 1932 to 10 l / s. At the same time, it was absolutely not established in the case that the inventory received full or partial disrepair (house of the People's Court of the Kamensky District No. 1169 18 / II-33) …
The collective farmer Lazutkin, working on the collective farm as a bully, released the bulls into the street during the harvest. One ox slipped and broke his leg, as a result of which he was slaughtered by order of the board. The People's Court of the Kamensk District on 20 / II, 1933, sentenced Lazutkin under the law of 7 / VIII to 10 years of l / s.
The minister of the religious cult Pomazkov, 78 years old, climbed the bell tower in order to sweep away the snow, and found there 2 sacks of corn, which he immediately announced to the village council. The latter sent people to check, who found another bag of wheat. The People's Court of the Kamensky District on 8 / II, 1933, sentenced Pomazkov under the law of 7 / VIII to 10 l / s.
The collective farmer Kambulov was sentenced by the law of 7 / VIII to 10 l / s by the People's Court of the Kamensky District on 6 / IV 1933 for the fact that he (being the head of the embars of the collective farm "Poor") was allegedly engaged in weighing collective farmers, as a result of which a flying revision an excess of grain of 375 kilos was found in one barn. Narsud did not take into account Kambulov's statement about checking other barns, since, according to him, due to incorrect write-off, there must be a shortage of the same amount of grain in another barn. After the conviction of Kambulov, his testimony was confirmed, since this grain was brought to another barn, and there was a shortage of 375 kg …
Narsud 3 uch. Shakhtinsky, now Kamensky, 31 / III district, 1933. Sentenced collective farmer Ovcharov for the fact that “the latter picked up a handful of grain and ate because he was very hungry and exhausted and did not have the strength to work” … according to Art. 162 of the Criminal Code for 2 years l / s. " [8, p. 4-5].
Each of these facts could have become an excellent reason for exposing the "crimes of the Stalinist regime", if not for a small detail - all these ridiculous sentences were immediately revised.
Condemnation "for spikelets" was not the norm, but lawlessness:
“On the other hand, each justice worker was required to prevent the application of the law in cases where its application would lead to discrediting it: in cases of theft on an extremely small scale or with an extremely heavy material need of the robber” [2, p. 2].
However, it is not in vain that they say: "Make the fool pray to God - he will break his forehead!" The low level of legal literacy of local personnel, coupled with excessive zeal, led to massive "excesses". As A. Ya. Vyshinsky, “here we can speak of a 'leftist' perversion, when everyone who committed petty theft began to be brought under the class enemy” [3, p. 102].
They fought with excesses, in particular, demanding to apply to insignificant thefts Article 162 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, which, as we recall, provided for much less severe punishment:
“In a number of cases, the law was unjustifiably applied to workers who committed embezzlement either on an insignificant scale or out of need. That is why it was pointed out the need to apply Article 162 and other articles of the Criminal Code in these cases”[2, p. 2].
Such miscarriages of justice, as a rule, were immediately corrected:
“According to the data recorded in a special resolution of the NKYU Collegium, the number of canceled sentences in the period from August 7, 1932 to July 1, 1933 ranged from 50 to 60%” [3, p. 100].
But among those convicted under the Law of August 7, there were also experienced robbers.
From the note of the deputy. Chairman of the OGPU G. E. Prokofiev and the head of the Economic Department of the OGPU L. G. Mironov addressed to I. V. Stalin of March 20, 1933:
“From the cases of embezzlement uncovered by the OGPU during the reporting two weeks, the large grain embezzlements that took place in Rostov-on-Don attract attention. Theft covered the entire system of Rostprokhlebokombinat: a bakery, 2 mills, 2 bakeries and 33 stores, from which bread was sold to the population. More than 6 thousand poods, bread, 1,000 poods, sugar, 500 poods, bran and other products were plundered. The embezzlement was facilitated by the lack of a clear statement of accountability and control, as well as criminal nepotism and spite of employees. The social workers' control attached to the grain trading network did not justify its purpose. In all established cases of embezzlement, the controllers were accomplices, confirming with their signatures deliberately fictitious acts on the shortage of bread, to write off the shrinkage and by weight, etc. 54 people were arrested in the case, including 5 members of the CPSU (b). …
In the Taganrog branch of Soyuztrans, an organization consisting of 62 drivers, loaders and port employees was liquidated, among whom a significant number of former. kulaks, merchants, and also a criminal element. During transportation, the organization stole cargoes transported from the port on the way. The size of the embezzlement can be judged by the fact that only grains and flour were plundered about 1500 poods”[9, p. 417-418].
"6 thousand poods of bread … 1500 poods of grain and flour …" These are not "spikelets".
The stringent measures have borne fruit. Thus, theft in transport decreased from 9332 cases throughout the network in August 1932 to 2514 cases in June 1933 [2, p. 1]. Thefts of collective farm property also decreased. On May 8, 1933, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR issued a joint instruction "On the cessation of the use of mass evictions and acute forms of repression in the countryside."
“This decision means a fundamental change in the entire punitive policy of the judiciary. It requires a shift in the center of gravity to mass political and organizational work and emphasizes the need for a more accurate, more precise, more organized strike at the class enemy, since the old methods of struggle have outlived their usefulness and are not suitable in the current situation. The directive means the end, as a rule, of massive and acute forms of repression in connection with the final victory of the collective farm system in the countryside. New methods in a new situation should be carried out "policy of revolutionary coercion" "[1, p. 2].
The use of the Law of August 7, 1932 is sharply reduced (see Table 1). From now on, it was to be used only for the most serious, large-scale facts of theft.
Table - Number of convicts 1932
A similar picture was observed in Ukraine. The number of those convicted under the Law of August 7, 1932 by the general courts of the Ukrainian SSR was:
1933 – 12 767
1934 – 2757
1935-730 people
Moreover, in January 1936, the rehabilitation of those convicted under this law began in accordance with Resolution No. 36/78 of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated January 16, 1936 “On checking the cases of persons convicted on the basis of the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated August 7, 1932“On protection of property of state enterprises, collective farms and cooperatives and strengthening of public (socialist) property”” [4].
As a result, the number of those convicted of plundering socialist property under the law of August 7, held in forced labor camps (ITL), during 1936 decreased almost threefold (see Table 2).
Table - Number of convicts 1932
Thus, the task of the Decree of August 7, 1932 was not to imprison and shoot as many people as possible, but to sharply tighten the measures of responsibility to protect socialist property from plunderers. At the initial stage of the application of the Decree of August 7, especially in the first half of 1933, there were massive excesses on the ground, which, however, were corrected by higher authorities. At the same time, in accordance with the old Russian tradition, the severity of the law was compensated by the non-obligation of its execution: despite the formidable wording, the death penalty was used quite rarely, and most of those sentenced to 10 years were rehabilitated in 1936.
[1] Botvinnik S. The bodies of justice in the struggle for the implementation of the law of August 7 // Soviet justice. - 1934, September. - No. 24.
[2] Bulat I. Year of the struggle for the protection of socialist property // Soviet justice. - 1933, August. - No. 15.
[3] Vyshinsky A. Ya. Revolutionary legality at the present stage. Ed. 2nd, rev. - M., 1933.-- 110 p.
[4] GARF. F. R-8131. Op. 38. D.11. L.24-25.
[5] GARF. F. R-9414. Op. 1. D.1155. L.5.
[6] Zelenin I. E. "Law on five spikelets": development and implementation // Questions of history. - 1998. - No. 1.
[7] Izvestia. - 1932, August 8. - No. 218 (4788). - C.1.
[8] Lisitsyn, Petrov. On the courts of the Severodonsk district // Soviet justice. - 1934, September. - No. 24.
[9] Lubyanka. Stalin and the VChK-GPU-OGPU-NKVD. Stalin's archive. Documents of the highest bodies of party and state power. January 1922 - December 1936.-- M., 2003.-- 912 p.
[10] Solomon P. Soviet justice under Stalin / Per. from English - M., 1998.-- 464 p.
[11] The Criminal Code of the RSFSR. The official text as amended on October 15, 1936 with the attachment of article-by-article-systematized materials. - M., 1936.-- 214 p.
